I'm not sure many people feel that way anymore

I guess. But the fact is that social media and the internet is so interwoven it's also basically impossible for people to imagine a world *without* it.

And there's *a lot* of code in stuff like Android. You won't just replace it.

It's pretty possible

I mean we still have places like this.

A lot of people still keep in touch with friends via Text, for example

This place is already selling games, what else might they do?

I'm not saying it's impossible. But I am saying you'll have a hard time getting people *off*

It didn't take a lot to get people to move on from MySpace

And like, really *off* not simply on a new platform or something.

Back then there were lots of options.

All it takes the incumbent to get lazy, which they already are

And then for something fresh to emerge

Microsoft got lazy in the 90s. They're not the monolith they once were, but they still are very much a thing.

Few of the alternatives at the moment are fresh

And are still extremely powerful.

And as things go along they will continue to ex-communicate people that disagree and eventually those numbers could get into the millions.

I don't think it'll take large numbers of excommunicated

It'll be much more fickle

Why did the media choose now to lie about them?

Ok. What exactly would you need for a fresh alternative. There comes a point in every new technology where things just get stale and there's not much new and exciting you can do. No one expects radical new fun out of their FM radio.

Is it because they need to compete with the internet?

@Sharpwing it's a race. You have to factor in the rate at which they get new recruits and manage to fundamentally rework the society. That rate seems much higher than the burnout rate. And many of the burnouts aren't exactly taking up arms for the other side.

Furthermore, it's not like there's new resources being taken away from them.

The IDPol Left is basically custom built from the ground up to seize resources and institutions and use them for their own ends.

As well as recruit and fight.

So then is the only response violence?

@RekItRalph Sensational stories sell. Bigger numbers are more interesting. And the press is generally extremely left-wing had has a terrible understanding of firearms issues in general, simply due to their lack of personal familiarity.

Also there's an incestuous relationship between left-wing advocacy groups and the media.

@Sharpwing No. And that's the worst option. But it does take organization and a willingness to seize the resources and destroy the institutions they've captured.

But why 2011 in particular. Why not back in the 90’s or early 2000’s

Some anti-gun NGO, with an obvious reason to inflate numbers, passes data to a news organization is is taken at face value because of their ideological alignment.

Where did you get the 2011 number in the first place?

Nobody expected or could've planned the situation we find ourselves in today

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_2012>

Stanford Geopartial Center

never let a crisis go to waste, and if you don't have a crisis that's just a problem of messaging.

FB and Twitter were regarded as curiosities when they appeared

One thing's for sure, no one's solving this problem by traditional means.

The only pattern in this space is that the future will be unexpected

Normally I’d get pissed but somehow im not surprised